Opinion: South Boulder Creek flood mitigation needs new minds doing new the thinking
Boulder just added a web page where the city states that it will start building the dam/floodwall for South Boulder Creek in October. No surprise to me, the projected cost went up another $10 million to $76.5 million since last year. (And that’s after spending something like $13 million on multiple re-designs to deal with issues that any intelligent person should have seen early on.) Just to list off some of the many problems that this “downstream” design still faces: The half-mile-long concrete wall along U.S. 36 requires a drainage system to get groundwater under U.S. 36 so as to avoid killing off threatened species on both sides; this will require significant ongoing maintenance to keep from being jammed up with dirt, etc. The detention pond at the north end of CU South property will require a liner, so that it doesn’t fill from high groundwater levels in that area. And the liner requires a drain, so it can empty and isn’t filled by pre-flood rains. The road into CU South ...